Ciao, Dahhlings...

I have returned from Italy! Please, please, hold your applause; it's embarrassing.

I have to say, after being enriched and delighted by the cuisine, sights, culture, and the all-important leather (which will require its own post), I must make a little observation: people from all over the world dress like shit.

Listen, we encountered people from Germany, Finland, France, Spain, Scotland, Korea, Japan, Peru- you name it. You know the stereotype that Americans stand out in foreign countries because we all dress like crap? Well, it's true. But everyone else is dressing like crap, too! The number of non-English speakers wearing huge white sneakers, slinging cameras around their necks, and toting gargantuan backpacks grossly outnumbered the ones speaking English. And that's based on a scientifically-conducted study.*

S and I were WAY better dressed than a lot of the people we leapt over the see the David and most of those we elbowed past in the Vatican.** This probably had something to do with the fact that:
a) our clothes fit (I do not approve of that much cleavage during the day, period);
b) our backpack, the few times we carried one, is of a normal size and proportion to our respective persons and does not hit others in the face/stomach/crotch with every step; and
c) we did not stink (strictly speaking, this is not clothing-specific, but damn, we caught some vile whiffs of BO!).

The best dressed people I saw were, in large part, Italian. Those women can work a scarf and a rocking pair of heels like nobody's business.

So, as promised, I return to you refreshed and inspired, ready to take on some of fall and winter's new trends (hello, shoulder pads? the 80s are calling and they want you back), tempt you to buy some new boots (don't lie, that tired old pair needs a decent burial), and even sneak in some other good stuff now and then.

Happy fall, people.

*Not exactly true.
** And by "elbowed", I mean body-checked.